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Haaretz's Ari Shavit: Kadima Must Be Defeated

Ari Shavit of Haaretz is no right-winger. He supports a withdrawal from almost all of Judea and Samaria in the context of a peace agreement, and favors a limited unilateral withdrawal too. But in a blistering column in Tuesday's Haaretz, Shavit absolutely rips apart Ehud Olmert's plan to unilaterally withdraw from almost all of Judea and Samaria, and parts of Jerusalem.

If Olmert is unable to form a coalition strong enough to carry out his plan, Shavit's column may be seen as a watershed moment, in which one of the most prominent and influential members of the Israeli media - and a bona fide leftist - challenged the mindless drive toward ceding to Hamas the heartland of Israel in exchange for nothing.

Here are some highlights from Shavit's piece:

In September 2000, the Palestinians began a terror offensive against Israel. They did this because they refused to accept the Camp David proposal, which promised them the entire Gaza Strip and 91 percent of the West Bank in exchange for full recognition of Israel and an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If Ehud Olmert is elected prime minister and implements his convergence plan, then in September 2010 the Palestinians will have sovereignty over the entire Gaza Strip and some 91 percent of the West Bank, and all this without recognizing Israel and without ending the conflict.

Thus will the national Palestinian movement fulfill the objectives of its wars and obtain a full strategic resolution against the State of Israel. The history books will record Olmert's unconditional withdrawal as the unconditional surrender of Zionism. No, it will not be the end. But it will be the beginning of the end. While relying on big money on one side and big journalism on the other, Olmert will lead the country to the beginning of the end...

This is a plan whose logic is simplistic and patronizing. This is a plan for Israelis only, which ignores its ramifications on Israelis. It takes an extreme unilateral position to the point of absurdity, totally ignoring the fact that the conflict is bilateral and the political reality is multilateral. The plan, then, is an arrogant one, and the hubris that characterizes it is no less than the hubris of the person who formulated it...

The Land of Israel must be divided. The occupation must end. A two-state solution is necessary. But the Hamas victory has made a two-state solution more distant and more complicated. Olmert's convergence plan makes it impossible. Therefore, if the public gives him the chance to carry out his arrogant plan, then March 28, 2006, will go down in history. History will remember it as the day that did not bring peace and did not bring security, but began the end.

posted on 3/13/2006